A moment of haste…

I was okay, when she kept de-satting

Her oxygen saturation approaching dangerously low levels, just before we were able to rouse her, and she began breathing again.  I was okay as I watched her round face still, and unresponsive to dull and strongly painful stimuli.  I was cool and collected (albeit with epinephrine coursing through my vessels) as my resident asked me to turn on the oxygen, so we could make sure her tiny brain, kidneys, and heart were well-perfused, thereby averting physiological disaster. 

But, I was not okay as I saw the face of a distraught mother standing outside the door of the nursery – witnessing the commotion around this tiny child. 

Fortunately, I was running for the elevators at this point – fulfilling a simple yet crucial task as those more medically skilled attended to the infant’s urgent needs (my intern asked me to grab and hold the elevator, so we could make a mad dash for the neonatal intensive care unit).

Fortunately, at this moment, I was running past the mother, so she could not see my face, as I started to break down inside – imagining her devastation and fear as she faced the mortality of her newborn girl – and I had a moment to carefully replace my professional veneer before anyone caught a glimpse of my emotion..

Funny, no, that in medicine we sometimes regard professional distance as paramount to our shared humanity.

Today, this newborn girl is alive, well, with an excellent prognosis.  Her instability today was likely due to a medication her mother ingested during pregnancy – which is now out of the baby’s system.

After the fact, I realized that in the moment I was forced to chose between meeting the mother's immediate emotional needs, and trying to prevent future suffering by doing everything within our power to save her daughter’s life.  As a believer in preventative medicine, if I had to do it over again, I would again chose the prophylactic measure;  yet, I would also make sure to be there with the mother as soon as possible after the urgent response – to soothe her, to provide her with accurate information, and to give her the support she needed for the trauma she just experienced (even though the worst fears thankfully never came to fruition).

A new beginning

Just beginning my third year of medical school - where I emerge from studying, and enter the hospital full of miraculous recoveries, shattering prognoses, high-risk deliveries - and the powerful human spirit that weathers all of the above.  Please join me on my journey, as I document what it's like to "feel it all" in the world of medicine.